


entropy

by fragileizy



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Crying in the bathroom, F/M, Mentions of blood and gore, Oneshot, a short little thing i wrote, adrienette - Freeform, ding dong the witch (gabriel agreste) is dead, i don't think i've ever written something like this before, is it gore? technically? author thinks it is, it's not death of a loved one if you didn't love them to begin with, no powers au, there's a whole lot of angst and hurt in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 23:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20497163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragileizy/pseuds/fragileizy
Summary: entropy - (n) lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.Something caved deep in her, something sharp and ever-expanding-- lodging itself between the minuscule spaces between her lung and heart, making itself at home in the hollow of her throat. No matter how hard she rubbed her hands under the faucet, watching the water in the sink turn from red to a hazy pink, she couldn’t get rid of the images that carved into her head. He was dead. They had killed him. And Marinette couldn’t breathe.





	entropy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookycitrine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookycitrine/gifts).

> i'm BACK from the DEAD and i have brought a tiny fanfic i wrote in a couple of hours while procrastinating college
> 
> gifted to ninjabrianna because i love you uwu

“We’ll be away from this entire situation before you know it.” Adrien whispered at some point, squeezing the palm of her hand underneath the blankets they had piled over themselves. Marinette had been lost counting all the stars in an attempt to stop, stop--  _ stop _ all of the noise of what had happened three days prior. She had made it to 73 before blinking films of tears out of her eyes, returning the squeeze back to him.

It had been alarming at first, to find that Adrien wasn’t the one who was suffering the most between the two of them. He seemed to be coping better than Marinette-- glassy eyes and depersonalizing be damned-- but that could’ve been because he had only needed to pull the trigger in order to end the fight. Marinette had to do more damage before Adrien had ultimately found her. Her fingers ached at the memory of trying to get out of a chokehold amateurally, her throat tightening and dense. Marinette squeezed her eyes shut tighter, forcing all the strength she had left into not allowing herself to breakdown. She had promised Adrien the first initial hour of stunned silence that she would focus at the task at hand before breaking down. That was three days ago. Adrien, throughout all of it, never gave any outward indication of what he had done except for the placid, resolute expression. 

_ But she had heard him crying. Sobbing in that unisex bathroom the diner they had been in at four in the morning after filling up the truck’s gastank. Marinette had been attempting to encourage herself all day to eat something more palatable than a chocolate granola bar she had found thrown haphazardly into her backpack, as well as the swig of a workout shake opened a day prior and still half full.  _

_ Walking into that diner had been easy for Adrien, full of easy fake smiles at the waitress that Marinette could see pulling at the corners of his eyes. She had pulled up her hood closer to the sides of her ginger neck, covering as much of the purpling skin with as much of her greasy hair as possible. She could tell some people in the diner looked at them and stayed glued to the sight-- saw the purple half circles under their eyes, regardless of Adrien’s professionalism-- the foreign officer logo on the bomber jacket Adrien had zipped up to brace himself against the chill of outside-- the skittish way Marinette walked.  _

_ Her stomach felt dry upon entering, settling down on the sticky booth leather, nodding when Adrien murmured he was going to the bathroom. Waiting for him at the booth just left of the door, making a valiant effort to drink all of the orange juice and take fork fulls of hash browns before her stomach disagreed with her, she had heard him cry over the sound of the running faucet, and the many paper towels he took out of the dispenser to blow his nose. It was hard to eat, regardless of the urgency of needing nourishment-- knowing that Adrien felt just as horrible as she did. _

_ Marinette fumbled for the fork, clattering it onto the plate in an attempt to get her hands to stop shaking. Staring at her hands provided no solace-- they trembled with the heavy weight of what they had done. A whimper of her own escaped from a low breath, and she caved into the sleeves of her sweater, smelling of rain and sweat. The soreness of her neck made it hard to breathe, like a phantom hand was replicating the chokehold that had threatened to take her life. It almost had. The black and blue and purple imprints felt permanent. _

_ Marinette’s eyes moved slowly over the way her fingers twitched-- the gun-- the stapler in her hand-- the sound that his skull had made when the stapler impacted-- the sound of the shot started to ring in her ear-- she wouldn’t be able to keep the hashbrowns down for much longer. Flattening her eyes shut, she grit her teeth as her stomach seized in an attempt to keep the bits of food down. She couldn’t afford to lose any that she had already fed herself. Eating was hard enough as it was. _

_ Adrien slid back into the booth across from her, their knees hitting underneath the table. Marinette’s stomach eased-- it was okay, Adrien was here, they were together-- he had killed him-- they were okay-- and she did her best to wipe under her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. _

_ She didn’t mention it to Adrien that she had heard him cry. It didn’t need to be said. His eyes had glassed over again by the time Marinette had finished wiping her cheeks, polishing off their plates after she promised she couldn’t eat any more. She sipped her orange juice slowly from the straw, knowing that she needed to try to keep eating for her energy, desperate for her to recognize the coldness of the glass in her hand and keep it to memory. _

_ “Marinette?” Adrien’s hand encompassed hers on the glass, a block of warmth against the numbness of her white-knuckled hand. Marinette swallowed dry, wondering where all the stars in his eyes had left to. Long eyelashes blocked her line of sight when she looked to where their hands were joined, the orange juice shaking in the cup. She couldn’t keep her hands still. However, his voice was even and patient with her-- just as it had always been the past couple of days. “Don’t hurt yourself. Please. Let go of the glass before you hurt your hand, Mari.” _

_ “It’s just-- the trauma,” Her voice cracked from the misuse, pain blistering on her skin. There hadn’t been much to talk about, lately. She gave a breathy laugh, giddy at how weak she sounded. “I-- feel like I’m-- losing it.” _

_ Adrien was silent then, contemplating it over the cup of coffee they had ordered. Marinette watched in silent distraught when she realized he hadn’t put any sugar inside it like he always did, but he made no face of surprise when sipping. “I feel like I’m losing it, too.” _

“What will we do then? When we get as far away as possible?” Marinette murmured, squeezing his hand to the point of hurting. She turned in the bedding they had made in the bed of the truck, facing him, away from the cover of the stars. Marinette hadn’t been able to stay in a bedroom without her feet locking onto the floor, so they had given in to sleeping in the back of Adrien’s truck. A quick trip to a grocery store had provided both of them sleep mats, and warming blankets to keep them safe in the open night air, as well as stockpile of workout shakes. 

Marinette had piled all of her medications into her bag, and stayed in a haze of painkillers for the first couple of hours when they left. Adrien’s truck was one of the most reliable pieces of work she had ever seen-- and when she finally awoke from her drug dose, it had been well into the afternoon-- the truck barely giving any indication of slowing down.

“I’m not sure.” Adrien gave it a thought. He sighed, turning towards her, lacing their hands together. His hand was frigid. “I was hoping that you would’ve had an idea.”

Marinette sucked in a breath. “How much more money do we have?”

“A couple hundred,” Adrien whispered back.

_ I’m sorry, _ she wanted to say.  _ I’m sorry that this week has gone completely sideways. _ There had been so much wrong in the week that she could barely remember what had happened prior to Adrien opening the door and finding Marinette choking-- precariously tipping her way to death. She wanted to apologize for how traumatic it must’ve been to pull the trigger. It couldn’t have been that easy to-- to kill--  _ him-- _ not when she had to use as many objects as possible to keep herself as alive as possible. Her breath hitched somewhere below her sternum, threatening to spill over her lips. 

She hadn’t asked Adrien if he was okay throughout the duration of the trip. He wasn’t. There was no way he could have been okay, regardless of the near-perfect facade Adrien put up. Marinette was silent as tears made their way across her cheeks, spilling onto the pillow they had taken from her house. She couldn’t speak.

“Mari,” Adrien’s voice came through the enclosing darkness threatening to cinch her throat up for good. “Marinette. It’s okay.”

She croaked between heavy, wet sobs. “How? How can it be? He’s dead. He’s--  _ dead.” _

“It was either you or him, Marinette.” Adrien squeezed her hand tighter. “I can’t regret it. I won’t regret it. Out of a million times, I will always choose  _ you.” _

“But he was your  _ father- _ \- I-- we--  _ we killed him.” _

Adrien stilled, eyes bright and wide-- Marinette could see them and the expanse of them in the night sky that was only illuminated by twinkling jewels-- and Marinette weeped into the palm of his hand when he reached over to gently brush hair out of her face. 

“I should have realized when he had killed my mother all those years ago. I should have realized when he beat me anytime he could. I should have realized that he was the one silently going around town and murdering anyone he could get his hands on. The fact that he had been in jail all that time--” Adrien’s jaw hardened. “I shouldn’t have underestimated him. It almost cost another life if I hadn’t found you in time. I’m the one to blame here. I had to do it, Marinette. I couldn’t lose you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](https://fragileizy.tumblr.com) // here's a [miraculous discord](https://discord.gg/MJTFPcN) i'm a part of! please join we'd love to have you there!
> 
> love you so much!!
> 
> -FragileIzy


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